Scientists have long suspected there are thousands of black holes at the centre of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, but have never been able to prove it. Now, thanks to a giant gas cloud, they may get the chance to find out.

“We know that there is a very massive black hole in the centre of the galaxy, many millions of times heavier than our Sun, and we also suspect that there are thousands and thousands much smaller — a few times the mass of the Sun,” Imre Bartos, a researcher at Columbia University and one of the key minds behind the project told the BBC.

Luckily, a giant gas cloud is going to give the scientists a way to find out. The G2 cloud is bigger than our entire solar system and is being sucked toward the supermassive black hole. Three times bigger than the orbit of Pluto around the sun, the G2 cloud was first spotted in 2011.

[. . .]

As the G2 moves toward the galactic centre, it will pass by the locations of the smaller theoretical black holes. At that point, if the black holes are actually there, the G2 cloud will spin off heat and gas which should be observable from Earth.

Global News’ Erika Tucker offers commentary on Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s comments that she was concerned about the ongoing affairs at Toronto City Hall and was ready to intervene. One problem, as Tucker notes, is that there isn’t really much that can be done. Even if the crack video turns up, it couldn’t be proven that it was crack cocaine being smoked?

When asked what an appropriate time to take action would be, Wynne said that, “there are measures that can be taken at city council in order to keep the business of the city running.

“I don’t know what the outcome of the allegations and all of the current actions is going to be, but I will take action if and when it is appropriate having followed due process.”

[. . .]

Wynne called the municipal level of government “a mature level of government” but one that is “the creature of the province at some high level.” She said there is an option of legislation changes, but didn’t commit to immediate action.

“The provincial legislature could amend the City of Toronto Act and the Municipal Elections Act but I do not see either of those things as a real possibility,” wrote John Mascarin, a partner with Aird & Berlis LLP, in an email to Global News. And Wynne’s comments suggest she has no plans to do so at this time.

“If at some later date we need to change those rules, then we have that conversation, but right now we are paying close attention to whether the business of the city is being done and everyone is following the procedures that are in place,” Wynne said.

Short of amending the statutes, there is actually little the province can do to remove an elected mayor, wrote Mascarin. An elected official can lose their seat if there’s a contravention of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act or if they commit a corrupt practice under the Municipal Elections Act, he added.

I don’t think that anyone will be surprised by the news that a policeman charged with beating someone at the G20 protests three years ago was just acquitted (the news was carried by the CBC, among others). It might be noteworthy that apparently police on the scene were unable to identify which of their fellows, even when presented with video evidence of the aftermath of the assault.

An Ontario Superior Court judge has acquitted Toronto police Const. Glenn Weddell on all assault charges arising from the G20 protests nearly three years ago.

Weddell was charged after Dorian Barton’s shoulder was broken on June 26, 2010. Barton alleged that a police officer hit him with a riot shield, knocking him to the ground.

Weddell, the first Toronto officer to go on trial for charges stemming from the protests, pleaded not guilty to assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.

[. . .]

Weddell testified that he doesn’t remember seeing anyone assault Barton, but noted that in the video it looks like another officer kicks Barton at one point while he’s on the ground.

“It was more like, ‘Get up, get out of here,”‘ Weddell testified. “That could be construed as assault, definitely, but it was more like a motivational thing … I see that in the video.”

Daniel Drezner thinks that applying bad analogies to contemporary international relationships can unduly prejudice the contemporary world, and wonders if the impending construction of the world’s tallest building in China signals the end of the Chinese boom.

Eastern Approaches notes the continued political strike in Poland over in-vitro fertilization.

Geocurrents’ Asya Pereltsvaig profiles the deportation of Soviet Koreans from their Pacific homeland to Central Asia in the late 1930s, and notes echoes of this deportation in the music of Soviet Korean singer-songwriters.

Since the Civil War ended in 1990, Lebanon’s various governments have been keen to present a Western face. This yen has a long history in Lebanon, where much education beyond primary level takes places in French and English. It taps into a tendency among some Christian Lebanese to identify themselves not as Arabs but as descendants of the ancient Phoenicians, a self-identification only strengthened during interwar French rule. In more recent years, this Western orientation has exhibited itself through cautious social tolerance mixed with neo-liberal economic policies, a shift that can be seen clearly on the streets of Beirut.

Beirut’s high-end consumer culture and party scene have consequently boomed, attracting tourists from elsewhere in the Middle East who are keen to wear fewer clothes and drink alcohol more freely, as well as Europeans discovering cafes, bars and beach clubs that wouldn’t be out of place in Barcelona or Mykonos. This liberal attitude has had some interesting side effects – it has helped, for example, the spread of reality TV made in Beirut throughout the Arab world, as Big Brother-style shows that mix genders are easier to produce there without raising social hackles. Accompanying this post-war reboot have been many problems residents of Western cities will also recognize. Beirut’s city center has seen a contested land grab by government-linked companies, the displacement of poorer Beirutis from the area and an ongoing speculative building boom that has seen old structures bulldozed to make way for luxury high-rises.

This anything-goes approach has appealed to some Lebanese governments’ Western allies. It has also helped to promote Beirut’s hedonistic reputation within the Middle East (the city and its environs are also a regional center for the sex industry), a reputation that has proved lucrative. Coupled with brave campaigning activities from LGBT activists, it has given some currency to the idea that permitting activities traditionally considered unsalubrious can have its advantages as long as they remain reasonably covert (and, allegedly, as long as those involved pay off the right people).

Lebanon’s complex inter-community politics have also helped. With a population divided into many religious and ethnic groups, there is a long history of leaving people to police themselves providing they don’t step beyond the confines of their group. Managing the divisions within Lebanese society takes so much energy and focus that politicians are usually too busy to sweat the presence of a few low-key gay bars.

Aidan Foster-Carter‘s Asia Times article makes the point that the extreme rhetoric used by the North Korean government against the South has the effect of shutting down possibilities for inter-Korean concord and cooperation. What incentive does the South have to cooperate with such a North? And how would the North, absent involvement with the South, avoid envelopment by China?

Fortunately, North Korea as yet lacks any such capacity, so this all had a staged and cartoonish character. That did not make it any less unsettling. Though little remarked, there may be a parallel here with last spring’s vicious and highly personalized propaganda campaign against South Korea’s then President Lee Myung-bak, including vile cartoons of him as a rat being bloodily done to death in a variety of ways. We covered this here in detail at the time.

These cartoons can no longer be found on KCNA, but Jeffrey Lewis has usefully preserved some for posterity. One comment there is worth quoting for its wider resonance: “How do you negotiate with a government that presents propaganda posters showing your president’s gory dismemberment?”

This year’s campaign lacked the cartoons’ visual nastiness and personal animus, but was no less extreme in its language. Quoting this in extenso would be tedious. Any reader – except in South Korea; will President Park end this needless ban? – has only to turn to KCNA.kp, which helpfully files its main diatribes under the telling sidebar “DPRK in All-Out Action Against Enemies,” and scroll back over the past two months. Of late they have toned this down, but only slightly.

As recently as May 10, party daily Rodong Sinmun could still write: “The DPRK remains steadfast in its attitude to meet any challenge of the hostile forces for aggression through an all-out action based on nuclear deterrent of justice, bring earlier the day of the final victory in the great war for national reunification (emphasis added) and guarantee the prosperity of a reunified country and the independent dignity of the nation for all ages.”

Leaving aside the bizarre idea of nuclear “all-out action” as a way to “guarantee prosperity” – guarantee poverty, more like – taken literally what can this mean except that North Korea would welcome a “unification” achieved by the nuclear defeat (as if!) of South Korea, with all the catastrophic material and human loss of innocent lives that would entail? Or if they don’t really mean it, why do they say it? To adapt the question above, how can you talk usefully to a regime which purports to gleefully contemplate nuking you into submission?